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It was a struggle out of bed this morning after staying up to watch last night’s stage of the Giro d’Italia but it was well worth it to see Thomas De Gendt storming up the Stelvio. Luckily a double espresso sorted me out to get to the ride’s meeting point in time. I’ve fitted a Brooks saddle to my steel frame in preparation for my top-secret plan to boost my People’s Grand Tour kilometres next weekend. Today was the test run to make sure it was fitted all comfortably so my plan was for an easy 100km or so in the Perth Alps.

I had a few people lined up to ride with but the first apology came last night when Vince from Elite Racing Cycles texted to say he was on the verge of a big night and wouldn’t be able to get up early. Then Pistol texted this morning with the feeble excuse that his car wasn’t working. Which left just me and Greg. Greg’s an old friend from school who lived in Switzerland for quite a while. He does a lot of mountain biking but hasn’t had much luck finding nice quiet roads to ride on. I took him on a bit of a circuit through some of my favourite quiet hilly roads.

There’s a couple of nice climbs in there.

I was surprised at the traffic on Orrong Road, especially this early on aSunday, but once we got to the hills we had a pretty good time of it.

Here’s Greg heading up Welshpool Road.

I had a dilemma descending Canning Mills Road because the early-morning view was quite splendid but I was having too much fun to stop my bike and get out the camera, so all I can offer you are these photos of Greg later in the ride:

Quiet roads, sunny weather – what more could you want?

Slightly rough road riding away from Canning Dam.

So this weekend I managed to ride along the Canning River, across Canning Highway, under the Canning Bridge, through Cannington, along Canning Road and Canning Mills Road, and past the Canning Dam. I’m sure this Canning character was fantastic and everything but did no one stop to think it might become a bit confusing naming everything after him? In any case, the ride was a success, the Brooks was comfortable and I got Greg home by midday to get all his chores done. And now I’m stuck watching Eurovision until the Giro starts. The Albanian woman was quite scary, wasn’t she?

You’re lucky Alf didn’t catch you riding down those parts without his prior consent. Unfortunately this blog entry puts in on the record for him to see at any time. If you can convince him that you rode there in the style that he approves, I think he will be pleased. Perhaps while you’re riding 600km I will go and upset Alf by riding through his favourite roads in a hurried fashion and with no appreciation whatsoever of the pretty surrounds.

To further confuse us, good old Wikipedia has it that there were two eponymous Cannings – a surveyor Alfred Canning for which the Canning Highway was named after, and a UK prime minister George Canning for which the Canning River and all its associated places are named after. I agree, this is confusing and you could get lost in all the Canning-ness.